Posted on 07/13/2006 1:21:13 PM PDT by presidio9
Finches on the Galapagos Islands that inspired Charles Darwin to develop the concept of evolution are now helping confirm it — by evolving.
A medium sized species of Darwin's finch has evolved a smaller beak to take advantage of different seeds just two decades after the arrival of a larger rival for its original food source.
The altered beak size shows that species competing for food can undergo evolutionary change, said Peter Grant of Princeton University, lead author of the report appearing in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Grant has been studying Darwin's finches for decades and previously recorded changes responding to a drought that altered what foods were available.
It's rare for scientists to be able to document changes in the appearance of an animal in response to competition. More often it is seen when something moves into a new habitat or the climate changes and it has to find new food or resources, explained Robert C. Fleischer, a geneticist at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and National Zoo.
This was certainly a documented case of microevolution, added Fleischer, who was not part of Grant's research.
Grant studied the finches on the Galapagos island Daphne, where the medium ground finch, Geospiza fortis, faced no competition for food, eating both small and large seeds.
In 1982 a breeding population of large ground finches, Geospiza magnirostris, arrived on the island and began competing for the large seeds of the Tribulus plants. G. magnirostris was able to break open and eat these seeds three times faster than G. fortis, depleting the supply of these seeds.
In 2003 and 2004 little rain fell, further reducing the food supply. The result was high mortality among G. fortis with larger beaks, leaving a breeding population of small-beaked G. fortis that could eat the seeds from smaller plants and didn't have to compete with the larger G. magnirostris for large seeds.
That's a form of evolution known as character displacement, where natural selection produces an evolutionary change in the next generation, Grant explained in a recorded statement made available by Science.
Your post #508, regarding the 'how' of creation in Genesis, is something I have asked before and have never received an answer...Did God speak and beings and things were created?..Did God produce a vision and from that beings and things were created?..Did God 'think', and then things and beings were created?...the Bible never tells us exactly 'how' things were done...
All different religions and different religious views, have differing ideas about creation...some believe in the 6-24hr days of creation, and many dont...and what one believes about this, is not what determines who is and who is not a Christian, in my opinion, tho some would have us believe otherwise...but then that is only their own personal opinion, they hardly speak for God...
Jeepers. Where did THAT come from? Did you really think I was agreeing that I am evading my original point? My original point is directed at the criticism often made here that Creationism is not falsifiable and therefore unscientific. You correctly pointed out that aspects of Creationism are potentially falsifiable, and that is what I was referring to when I said, "I agree".
I asked you, more or less, if common descent from a universal ancestor is a fact, if it is simply axiomatic that there really was a common ancestor, how could any empirical argument be constructed against it, and consequently, how can the claim be evaluated scientifically?
I am interested in your answer to that question, but I'm not interested in responding to silly accusations of evasion.
Cordially,
This is not axiomatic. It is a conclusion based on evidence. Religion and philosophy reason from axioms, but science does not.
"Jeepers. Where did THAT come from?"
From you agreeing you evaded the subject.
"My original point is directed at the criticism often made here that Creationism is not falsifiable and therefore unscientific."
Which I didn't make, and you have moved away from by talking about the testability of evolution.
If common descent is a fact; if there really was a single common ancestor, how is the claim at risk empirically?
Cordially,
Facts are not axioms. In science, facts are subject to correction, amendment and augmentation.
The "fact" of common descent is a conclusion based on forensic investigation. Evidence has been accumulating for hundreds of years, and some details published on the subject have required updating.
This is not unlike the updating of heliocentrism from Copernicus to Einstein. The basic fact is that the earth revolves around the sun. At first the orbit was assumed to be circular, then elliptical, and most recently, to follow the curvature of spacetime.
If common descent is paradigmatic as heliocentrism is, there never need be any concern that it will ever be put at risk observationally.
Cordially,
No and no. Ongoing forensic investigations are always subject to surprises. The acceptance of common descent is a matter of having confidence after hundreds of years of digging and analyzing. It is neither axiomatic nor the result of circular reasoning. It's just the best available explanation.
The evidence seems to have convinced prominent evolution critics like Behe and Dembski.
Can you think of any conceivable observation that would put it at risk?
Cordially,
They weren't the first and won't be the last critics to have turned out to be wrong.
Evasion. When you can't answer,evade. Typical.
A week to think up a response, and that's the best you can do?
Your words very powerfully express the quality of your thought.
You have no idea.
If you have a dent in your car that happens in the night and the paint and height are unique to a blue 1990 Ford Explorer you don't go looking for a red 2001 Audi.
And there is nothing concrete in "believing the power of One True God, Jesus Christ." And, since Jesus Christ was HIS SON, I prefer to practice my Christianity as God commanded and not the way whatever weird sect you represent does.
ID is not falsifiable; any observation whatsoever is consistent with the claim "that's how the designer did it"
Biblical/Koranic creationism makes specific claims (the deluge) and impies others (Earth less than a million years old) which have in fact been falsified.
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